The Physics of Ultrasound Eei

The Physics of Ultrasound
Extended Response Task

Nathan Turner
Year 12 Physics Miss Meni Semester 4, Term 3 Due Date: 19th August 2011
Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction: .....................................................................................................3 2.0 History of the technology: ..................................................................................3 3.0 Analysis of technology design and function: ........................................................ 6 3.1 Wave Propagation: .......................................................................................................... 7 3.2 Piezoelectric Transducer: ................................................................................................ 8 3.2.1 Electrostriction .......................................................................................................... 9 3.2.2 The Piezoelectric Effect ........................................................................................... 11 3.3 Attenuation: .................................................................................................................. 11 3.4 Acoustic Impedance: ..................................................................................................... 13 4.0 Comparison to alternatives: .............................................................................. 15 5.0 Future developments: ...................................................................................... 17 6.0 Conclusion: ..................................................................................................... 19 7.0 References: ..................................................................................................... 20 8.0 Appendices: .................................................................................................... 22 8.1 Appendix 1: ................................................................................................................... 22

1.0 Introduction:
Medical imaging is the technique used by doctors to create internal images of the human body for clinical reasons such as examining and diagnosing diseases (NDT Resource Centre, 2011). The aim of medical imaging is to deliver an image of inside the body in a way that is as non-invasive as possible (Radiological Society of North America, 2011).
This report will investigate ultrasound as a form of medical imaging and determine the history of the technology, comparison to alternative forms of imaging, future developments and will investigate the physics behind ultrasound in all regards.
2.0 History of the technology:

Prior to modern day ultrasonic testing, numerous physics concepts had to be first discovered. The following is a timeline of physics discoveries that lead to the common use of ultrasound imaging (see figure 1). Figure 1: Timeline of Ultrasound The greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras experimented with the vibration of strings. This is the earliest study of sound and was the beginning of the idea that sound travels in waves. Another greek philospher, Aristotle, suggested that the movement of air carries sound. This again contributed to to the modern day use of ultrasound as this theory explains the movement of sound waves. Leonardo DaVinci discovered and proved that sound travels in waves. This proved Aristotles theory and again contributed to the idea of ultrasound.
500BC
400BC
150AD
Marin Merenne first measured the speed of sound through air.

1640
1660
Robert Boyle discovered that that sound waves require a medium to propagate.
1665-1669
Sir Isaac Newton formulated a relationship between the speed of sound in a medium and the density and compressiblity of a medium.
Mid 1700's
Daniel Bernoulli explained that a string can vibrate at more than one frequency.
1790
Lazzaro Spallanzani experimented with bats and discovered that they flew through the air using hearing rather than sight. This lead to the theory that sounds waves can be reflected or echoed back to the original source. This is still the basis of all ultrasound testing. The swiss physicist/engineer Jean-daniel Colladon discovered sonography with an underwater bell. With this, he accurately determined the speed of sound through water. Pierre Curie found a connection between between electrical voltage and pressure on a crystalline material, I.e. The piezoelectric effect. This was the biggest breakthough in the history of ultrasound since the discovery of sound waves as it is the basis behind the modern day piezoelectric transducer.
1826
1881
After the sinking of the titanic, Paul Langevin invented the first hydrophone to detect icebergs. This was the first transducer; a device that could send and receive low 1912-1915 frequency sound waves. This was another major step foward in the history of ultrasound. The Austrian psychiatrist Dr. Karl Dussik was the first to use ultrasound pictures in an attempt to diagnose brain tumors. The procedure was called "hyperphonography" and he used heat sensitive Late 1930's paper to record the echos. This is considered the first the first use of ultrasound for medical purposes.
Continued next page.
Late 1940's
Dr. George Luwig was the first to record the difference in sound waves as they travelled through tissues, organs, muscles and gallstones. This once again was an extravigant contribution to the history of ultrasound.
Scottish professor Ian Donald invented the B mode scanner.
1950's
1960's
Douglas Howry and Joseph Holmes impoved the B-mode scanner by inventing a tranducer that came into direct contact with the patient. Before this, patients had to be submerged in water. This was the start of ultrasound as we know it today.
1970 present
Dr. John Wild and John Reid improved various ultrasound equipment such as the B-mode instrument that could swing side to side and image patients from different angles. This instrument was used to to detect breast tumors. They also invented an A-mode scanner for the detction of ovarian cancer.
(Genesis Ultrasound, 2010. Simmons, n.d).
3.0 Analysis of technology design and function:

Ultrasound is form of mechanical sound energy that travels through the body in order to produce an internal image (Ultrasound for Regional Anesthesia, 2008). Ultrasound is used in medicine for the purpose of examining and diagnosing a variety of issues within the human body. This form of medical imaging helps physicians to assess symptoms such as pain, swelling and infections in many of the bodys internal organs such as the heart, liver, gallbladder, spleen, pancreas, brain, kidneys and most commonly it is used for examining an unborn child (fetus) in pregnant patients (Radiological Society of North America, 2011).
Several functional units are required for a typical ultrasound inspection system. These functional units include: a pulsar/receiver, a transducer and display services. The pulsar/receiver is an electronic device that produces high voltage electrical pulses. Driven by the pulsar, the transducer generates high frequency ultrasonic energy, which in turn produces sound energy that propagates through materials in the form of longitudinal sound waves (NDT Resource Centre, 2011). When a defect (e.g. A crack) is in the wave path, part of the energy is reflected back to the transducer from the surface of the flaw (see figure 2). The transducer then converts the reflected wave signal back to an electrical signal and the result is displayed on a screen (NDT Resource Centre, 2011). Figure 2: Generation of Ultrasound
(NDT Resource Centre, 2011)
3.1 Wave Propagation:

Sound travels as a longitudinal, mechanical wave. Sound waves are capable of traveling through any medium (e.g. Body tissue), however without a medium, sound does not exist. The medium itself is in fact motionless, however, the individual atoms and molecules in the medium oscillate about their equilibrium position and interact with the neighbouring molecules, thus transferring energy (The Physics Classroom, n.d). These waves exist as a disparity of pressure. An area of increased pressure on a sound wave is called a compression, whereas a region of decreased pressure on a sound wave is called a rarefaction (Media College, n.d)(see figure 3). Figure 3: Sound Wave
(Ultrasound for Regional Anethesia, 2008)
The speed of sound is the rate of the transmission of energy along a chain of particles. It depends solely on the medium it is traveling through. Predominantly, the elastic and inertial properties have the greatest affect on the velocity of the wave (The Physics Classroom, n.d). With relation to ultrasound, the speed of sound fluctuates for different biological mediums; however, the accepted average for the speed of sound through soft tissue is 1540 m/s (Radiological Society of North America, 2011). The speed of sound can be found for different soft body tissues using:
Figure 4: Speed of Sound Equation
Where: v is the speed of sound. C is the elastic constant p is the material density.
Due to the elastic and inertial properties of the various soft body tissue, the speed of ultrasound travels slowest through mediums such as air and the lung and fastest through bone (see figure 5). Figure 5: Speed of Ultrasound Waves through different Biological mediums
3.2 Piezoelectric Transducer:

A piezoelectric transducer is an instrument used for the conversion of electrical energy into mechanical vibrations (NDT Resource Centre, 2011). They rely on two phenomena known as electrostriction and the piezoelectric effect. Piezoelectric ceramic is used as the active element of all transducers and their function is to create ultrasound waves at a frequency in excess of 20,000 Hz (Radiological Society of North America, 2011).
3.2.1 Electrostriction The crystals used in piezoelectric transducers are polarized (i.e. some parts of the molecule are positively charged, while other parts of the molecule are negatively charged) with electrodes attached to two of its opposite faces (NDT Resource Centre, 2011) (see figure 6). Thus, when in the presence of an electric field, the polarized molecules will align themselves with the electric field (see figure 7). This alignment of molecules causes the piezoelectric crystal to change its dimensions; this is the phenomenon known as electrostriction (NDT Resource Centre, 2011) (see figure 8). Figure 6: Piezoelectric Transducer
(Genesis Ultrasound, 2010) Figure 7: Alignment of Molecules in Electric Field
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Figure 8: Electrostriction
(No Author, 2007)
Thus, the piezoelectric crystal changing dimensions (i.e. expanding and contracting) due to electrostriction leads to the production of an ultrasound wave. The repetition of this process leads to the formation of an ultrasound beam. An ultrasound beam is generated in pulses and each pulse consists of approximately 2 or 3 series of the same frequency (Radiological Society of North America, 2011) (see figure 9).
Figure 9: Ultrasound Beam
The distance travelled per pulse is known as the pulse length (see figure 9). The shorter the wave pulse, the better the axial resolution of the final ultrasound image (Radiological Society of North America, 2011).
11
The Pulse Repetition Frequency (PRF) is the rate of pulses emitted by the transducer (Radiological Society of North America, 2011) (see figure 9). 3.2.2 The Piezoelectric Effect Some materials, when subjected to mechanical stress, are able to produce electricity (Hyperphysics, n.d). This phenomenon is called the piezoelectric effect. It occurs in ultrasound when the balance of charged molecules inside the piezoelectric crystal is disturbed (Radiological Society of North America, 2011) (see figure 10).
Figure 10: Piezoelectric Effect
(Stevens Institute of Technology, 2007)
3.3 Attenuation:
The further the ultrasound wave traverses the body and as the depth of penetration is increased, the amplitude of the original beam is attenuated. Thus, the energy that is lost in ultrasonic testing is known as attenuation (NDT Resource Centre, 2011). Attenuation is due to three things: Absorption Reflection Scattering of the beam
The most common of the three is absorption, which counts for 80% of all attenuation in ultrasonic testing (Radiological Society of North America, 2011). Absorption takes the acoustic energy and transfers it into heat production (Ultrasound for Regional Anethesia, 2008).
12
The unit of measurement for attenuation is decibels per centimeter of tissue. This figure is represented by the attenuation coefficient of the specific tissue type (see figure 11). Figure 11: Attenuation Coefficients of various body tissues
(Ultrasound for Regional Anethesia, 2008) As the attenuation coefficient is increased, the energy lost of the original sound beam is also increased; therefore this follows a proportional relationship. This is why bone, which has a very high attenuation coefficient, limits beam transmission to such a high degree. The frequency and distance of the ultrasound beam also has an effect on the total attenuation (Ultrasound for Regional Anethesia, 2008) (see figure 12).
Figure 12: Graph of the Effect that the Frequency has on Attenuation
13
By observing the above graph it can be seen that as the frequency of the ultrasound beam is increased, so does the attenuation. Therefore, the frequency is directly proportional to the attenuation of an ultrasound beam (NDT Resource Centre, 2011).
Although the majority of attenuation is due to absorption, approximately 20% of this energy loss is due to reflection and scattering. The amount of reflection is established by the variance in acoustic impedances of the two tissues at the boundaries (Ultrasound for Regional Anethesia, 2008).
3.4 Acoustic Impedance:

Acoustic impedance is the resistance of a tissue to the passage of ultrasound (Ultrasound for Regional Anethesia, 2008). Acoustic impedance can be found using a simple equation (see figure 13).
Figure 13: Acoustic Impedance Formula
Where: z is the acoustic impedance p is the density of the medium v is the propagation velocity of ultrasound through the medium.
A large difference in acoustic impedance between mediums is called acoustic impedance mismatch. The greater the acoustic mismatch the greater the percentage of ultrasound reflected and less transmitted (NDT Resource Centre, 2011).
There is a variation of acoustic impedance with different body tissues (see figure 14).
14
Figure 14: Variation of Acoustic Impedance with Body Tissues
Analysing this table shows that the strongest reflected ultrasound beams would be for air as it has very small acoustic impedance when compared to other body tissues. Bone would also have a high degree of reflection as it has an acoustic impedance that is very high relative to other body tissues (Ultrasound For Regional Anethesia, 2008).
The reflection co-efficient can be modeled and calculated by the following equation (see figure 12). Figure 12: Reflection Co-efficient
)
Where: R is the reflected wave Z1 is the initial impedance Z2 is the final impedance
For example, the reflection between muscle and bone is 41%, meaning 41% of the beam is reflected when the wave travels from muscle through to bone (see appendix 1).
15
The table also demonstrates why it is necessary for a gel to be applied to the patient when an ultrasound test is in progress. The gel acts as an acoustic coupling medium on the transducer and its purpose is to eliminate any air pockets between the transducer and the skin surface. Without this gel, 99.9% of the ultrasound beams will be reflected away, therefore only 0.01% the beam will be available to penetrate body tissue and produce an image (see appendix 1) (Ultrasound for Regional Anethesia, 2008).
4.0 Comparison to alternatives:

Ultrasound imaging yields many benefits, however it also carries some disadvantages (see figure 15). Figure 15: Advantages and Disadvantages of Ultrasound
Advantages Very easy to perform an ultrasound test.
Disadvantages The resolution of images is quite often restricted.
Examinations are non-invasive. The body does not have to be cut open and nothing has to be inserted inside the body.
The reflection of sound waves when passing from tissue to gas has an effect that limits ultrasound from being used in areas containing gas, such as the lungs.
Examinations are quick, convenient and relatively inexpensive.
Due to attenuation, ultrasound does not pass well through bone, therefore images of the brain can be taken but will often be distorted.
Does not use ionizing radiation, therefore no harmful effects can come from these examinations. Extremely good at examining soft tissue such as the eye, heart and other internal organs. Provides real-time imaging, therefore it can be a good tool for procedures such as needle biopsies.
16
As ultrasound testing examines such a diverse range of problems within the body, it can be used as an alternative to most other forms of medical imaging. Due to this fact, there is no other form of medical imaging that uses similar technology to ultrasound. However, as an example, ultrasound can image the brain and so can MRI, therefore the comparison will be made between ultrasound and MRI in order to determine the most effective method of imaging the brain. Figure 16: Advantages and Disadvantages of MRI
Advantages Examinations are non-invasive.
Disadvantages Due to the powerful magnetic field, patients with pacemakers and other cannot undergo a MRI procedure.
Patients are not subjected to ionizing radiation. Enables the detection of problems they may be behind bone without any distortion of the image. Enables the detection of abnormalities of the brain, as well as the assessment of the normal functional anatomy of the brain.
Cannot always distinguish between malignant tumors and benign diseases. A small number of risks and side effects are present.
Patients can become claustrophobic in the small area inside the MRI machine.
Larger patients may not fit inside the MRI machine. Examinations can take up to 4 hours; during the time patients are required to stay motionless.
Magnetic Resonance imaging, or MRI, is another form of non-invasive medical imaging that is used to evaluate and diagnose problems with internal organs (Radiological Society of North America, 2010). MRI uses a very powerful magnetic field and radio frequency pulses in order to generate an image of the brain (Radiological Society of North America, 2010). Like ultrasound, MRI carries many advantages and disadvantages (see figure 16).
17
By analysing figures 15 and 16 it can be seen that both ultrasound and Magnetic Resonance Imaging yield many benefits. Both forms of imaging do not require any ionizing radiation as ultrasound uses sound waves to image the patients, whilst MRI uses radio waves that redirect the axis of spinning protons in a powerful magnetic field (Radiological Society of North America, 2010). In addition, neither forms of imaging are invasive, however both are effective at imaging soft tissue such as the brain. Due to this, and the fact that both forms of imaging are non-invasive to the patient, it can be said that both ultrasound and MRI are effective forms of brain imaging (Simmons, n.d).
However, due to the large attenuation of the ultrasound wave when passing through bone (the skull), the final image can be distorted, whereas magnetic resonance imaging passes through bone, leaving a high-resolution image. It is due to this that magnetic resonance imaging is the most effective way of non-invasively imaging the brain.
5.0 Future developments:

Ultrasound is a rapidly developing form of medical imaging and has come a long way since it began in the late 1930s. Originally, all ultrasound pictures produced were twodimensional images. The 1980s saw the introduction of three-dimensional images that works in the same way as 2D, however the transducer is moved in a circular motion over the organ, tissue or fetus to be imaged and pictures are taken from multiple angles and planes. This renders the surface of the organ or fetus and a sculpture like image is created (Genesis Ultrasound, 2010).
Future developments in ultrasound are beginning to emerge now in the form of fourdimensional Doppler ultrasound. Unlike 2D and 3D ultrasound, 4D ultrasound uses several pictures in rapid succession that gives the effect of motion. This effect is achieved by the phenomenon of the Doppler effect. The transducer detects movement inside the body by the frequency of the returned echoes. A high frequency that is received means the object is moving closer to the transducer and lower frequencies mean the object is moving away. The images received are immediately displayed on the display screen is such quick succession that the movements inside the body can be seen in real-time (Genesis Ultrasound, 2010).
18
Even more advanced from 4D imaging is hologram ultrasound. Hologram ultrasound allows the ultrasound beam to pass completely through the object it is imaging whilst a second wave is transmitted simultaneously in order to create a 3D hologram (see figure 17).
Figure 17: Holographic Ultrasound
(Genesis Ultrasound, 2010)
The resulting hologram images would be capable of displaying images in great finer detail than currently possible with ultrasound and even MRI scans. For example, currently ultrasound cannot detect calcification, which is an early marker of breast cancer, however hologram ultrasound would provide images with such fine detail as the sound waves are passing completely through the tissue or organ, there would be no clouding of the image (Genesis Ultrasound, 2010). Therefore with the introduction of hologram ultrasound in the near future, the number of patients killed by breast cancer every year could be drastically reduced due to the early detection that this form of ultrasound could provide. Additionally, cardiovascular disease could also be detected much earlier using this form of ultrasound as the image would provide clear pictures of inside various parts of the heart, including the pulmonary veins, left and right ventricle and the left and right atriums (see figure 18).

Figure 18: Diagram of a Heart
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The detail that holographic ultrasound images produce could in fact lead to the detection of heart-valve disease or hardening of the arteries in such early stages that is not at the moment possible (Genesis Ultrasound, 2010). Once again, this could significantly reduce the amount of patients who die from preventable diseases such as these cardiovascular infections.
6.0 Conclusion:
The aim of this report was to investigate ultrasound as a form of medical imaging. It was found that the history of ultrasound dates back to 500BC when Pythagoras experimented with sound and its properties. It was also found that ultrasound is a very effective way of imaging the body non-invasively, using mechanical sound waves produced from piezoelectric crystals expanding and contracting due to electrostriction and the piezoelectric effect. When compared to Magnetic Resonance Imaging, ultrasound proved to be the less efficient way of imaging the brain because of the distortion of the ultrasound image due to the attenuation that the bone in the skull produces. Lastly, it was found that hologram ultrasound is a future development that would have positive effects on diagnosing breast cancer when it comes into use in the near future.
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7.0 References:
B.A.T.S Research Group. (2011). Physics of Ultrasound. Retrieved July 10, 2011, from Better Anethetics Through Sonography (BATS): http://www.bats.ac.nz/resources/physics.php
Genesis Ultrasound. (2010). 4D Ultrasound uses the Doppler effect to show motion. Retrieved August 1, 2011, from Genesis Ultrasound: http://www.genesis-ultrasound.com/4Dultrasound.html
Genesis Ultrasound. (2010). A Condenced History of Ultrasound. Retrieved August 1, 2011, from Genesis-Ultrasound: http://www.genesis-ultrasound.com/history-ofultrasound.html
Genesis Ultrasound. (2010). Hologram Ultrasound. Retrieved August 2, 2011, from Genesis Ultrasound: http://www.genesis-ultrasound.com/Hologram-Ultrasound.html
Hyperphysics. (n.d). Piezoelectric Effect. Retrieved July 16, 2011, from Hyperphysics: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/solids/piezo.html
Media College. (n.d). How Sound Waves Work. Retrieved June 26, 2011, from Media College: http://www.mediacollege.com/audio/01/sound-waves.html
NDT Resource Centre. (2011). Acoustic Impedance. Retrieved June 23, 2011, from NDT Resource Centre: http://www.ndted.org/EducationResources/CommunityCollege/Ultrasonics/Physics/acousticimped ance.htm
NDT Resource Centre. (2011). Attenuation of Sound waves. Retrieved July 23, 2011, from NDT Resource Centre: http://www.ndted.org/EducationResources/CommunityCollege/Ultrasonics/Physics/attenuation.ht m
NDT Resource Centre. (2011). Basic Principles of Ultrasound Testing. Retrieved June 23, 2011, from NDT Resource Centre: http://www.ndt-
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ed.org/EducationResources/CommunityCollege/Ultrasonics/Introduction/descriptio n.htm
NDT Resource Centre. (2011). Characteristics of Piezoelectric Transducers. Retrieved June 27, 2011, from NDT Resource Centre: http://www.ndted.org/EducationResources/CommunityCollege/Ultrasonics/EquipmentTrans/chara cteristicspt.htm
No Author. (2007). Introduction: The Piezoelectric Effect. Retrieved August 1, 2011, from Piezoelectric Materials: http://www.piezomaterials.com/
Physics 247. (n.d). Physics tutorial: Ultrasound Physics. Retrieved June 29, 2011, from Physics 247: http://www.physics247.com/physics-tutorial/ultrasound-physics.shtml
Radiological Society of North America. (2011). General Ultrasound Imaging. Retrieved June 26, 2011, from Radiology Info: http://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info.cfm?pg=genus
Radiological Society of North America. (2010). MRI of the Body. Retrieved August 2, 2011, from Radiology Info: http://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info.cfm?pg=bodymr
Simmons, A. (n.d). Medical Physics - Ultrasound. Retrieved June 29, 2011, from Genesis: http://www.genesis.net.au/~ajs/projects/medical_physics/ultrasound/index.html
Stevens Institute of Technology. (2007). Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting. Retrieved August 3, 2011, from 07-08 Senior Design: Group 3: http://www.ece.stevenstech.edu/sd/archive/07F-08S/websites/grp3/piezoelectric.html
The Physics Classroom. (n.d). Sound Properties and Their Pereption. Retrieved June 26, 2011, from The Physics Classroom: http://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/sound/u11l2c.cfm
Ultrasound for Regional Anethesia. (2008). Basic Principles. Retrieved June 25, 2011, from Ultrasound for Regional Anethesia: http://www.usra.ca/basic_p
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8.0 Appendices:
8.1 Appendix 1:
Calculations for Reflection: R=? Z1 = 1.71 (see figure 14) Z2 = 7.8 (see figure 14)
( (
) )
R=? Z1 = 0.0004 (see figure 14) Z2 = 1.65 (see figure 14)
( (
) )

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Extended Response Task